Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Muslim Khan has said sharia law would not be restricted to Malakand division, and that the Taliban will not lay down weapons unconditionally, a private TV channel reported on Monday.

Asked whether the Taliban would extend sharia law to other areas of Pakistan, Khan said: “Sure, because [the holy] Quran is not only for Malakand division. It is for all humanity, for all Muslims and we will go for the implementation of sharia in other parts of Pakistan as well. ”

He said Taliban would not lay down their weapons unconditionally. “We are Pakhtuns and every Pakhtun has a gun. We have no tanks, no helicopters or jets,” he said. Muslim Khan said the Taliban would keep their weapons if the qazi courts allowed them to.

He said nobody had asked American forces to keep their weapons on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean or to surrender, but everyone had been asking the Taliban to lay down their arms. About international criticism that the Nizam-e-Adl is a parallel system of government, the Taliban spokesman said: “We don’t care about the reaction of the government in Pakistan or abroad.”

Separately, NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti said his government would take all possible measures to uphold its writ in the troubled areas. He also said that the government would not allow a parallel system of governance to be established in Swat, and that the implementation of the Nizam-e-Adl was the responsibility of the NWFP government.

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Many fear that the Taliban's area of influence is moving beyond the Swat region and deeper into Pakistani Punjab regions.....